Population Health Data

Contra Costa Health Services tracks all kinds of health data in order to identify areas of concern and measure the health of our county's residents against the health of Californians in general.

Click on a category below (for example, "Diabetes") in order to see some statistics we have highlighted about mortality rates, diseases and health conditions in Contra Costa. The data is drawn from the 2010 Community Health Indicators report, a full copy of which you can read here. You can find data about other diseases and trends in the Health Indicators report. You can also access additional data about HIV/AIDS, STDs, tuberculosis and other reportable communicable diseases on the menu bar to the left.

In Contra Costa, greater wealth equated to longer life. A child born in a low-poverty area in 2000 could expect to live more than six years longer than a child born in a high-poverty area. Life expectancy in low-poverty areas was 81.4 years and 74.9 years in high-poverty areas.

African Americans in Contra Costa had a shorter life expectancy (73.1 years) than any other racial/ethnic group in the county. An Asian/Pacific Islander or Hispanic baby born between 2005 and 2007 in Contra Costa could expect to live more than 12 years longer than an African American baby born at the same time.

A child born in a high-education area in Contra Costa (i.e., all census tracts with less than 5% of residents with less than a high school diploma) in 2000 could expect to live more than seven years longer than a child born in a low-education area (all census tracts with 25% or more residents with less than a high school diploma).

African American babies were least likely to be breastfed in the hospital.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, low-income mothers were less likely to breastfeed their babies than higher-income mothers.

In 2006, 12,147 babies born in Contra Costa hospitals were breastfed, formula fed or some combination of the two before being discharged from the hospital. Of these, 11,318 were breastfed at least once.

While a high percentage of babies were breastfed, nearly one-third of these were also formula fed before being discharged from the hospital. Just 62.2% (7,556) of the 12,147 babies were breastfed exclusively until they left the hospital.

Between 2005–2007, there were 1,021 asthma hospitalizations among Contra Costa children ages 0-14. Contra Costa's age-adjusted asthma hospitalization rate for children (16.1 per 10,000) was higher than California's age-adjusted rate (13.2 per 10,000).

African American children were most likely to be hospitalized for asthma.

In 2007, more than half (56.2%) of Contra Costa adults were either overweight or obese. This was similar to the percent of overweight and obese adults in the greater Bay Area (53.3%) and California (58.4%).

In 2008–2009, an estimated 3,136 fifth-graders in Contra Costa were overweight or obese.

Latino and African American fifth-graders were more likely to be overweight or obese than fifth-graders in the county overall.

Antioch, West Contra Costa and Pittsburg unified school districts had higher percentages of overweight or obese fifth-graders compared to the county overall.